Category: 2019

The anti-smuggling department of the State Revenue Committee recently prevented another attempt to illegally transport drugs across the border of the republic.

The SRC informs that the employees of the department inspected the luggage of the Iranian citizen Sh.S. who arrived in Armenia at the “Agarak” state border checkpoint. As a result, 5.5 kg of a white, crystal-like substance similar to “methamphetamine” type drug was found in the side of his travel bag.

With the materials compiled in the anti-smuggling department, a criminal case was initiated in the investigative department of the SRC under the characteristics of part 1 of Article 267.1 of the RA Criminal Code. The citizen of Iran was arrested.

The Court of Cassation did not accept the application of the defendant Robert Kocharyan’s defense attorneys in the March 1 case.

Kocharyan’s lawyers appealed to the Court of Cassation, asking to annul the decisions of the Court of Appeals of June 25. Information about this is posted on the website of the judicial information system.

Earlier, the Appellate Criminal Court overturned the decisions of the Yerevan Court of First Instance and made a decision to re-arrest Kocharyan.

On May 18, the court of first instance made a decision to release Kocharyan from custody, and on May 20, it suspended the proceedings of the criminal case and sent it to the Constitutional Court.

Today, the Italian Senate ratified the RA-EU Comprehensive and Extended Partnership Agreement with 242 votes in favor and 2 abstentions.

“We hope that soon it will also be ratified by the Chamber of Deputies of Italy,” it was stated on the Facebook page of the RA Embassy in Italy.

The editors of “Hayeli.am” and “Armlur.am” websites were interrogated today as witnesses in the criminal case initiated regarding the death of Hayk Harutyunyan.

They refused the proposal of the pre-investigative body to videotape the interrogation and, citing Article 5 of the RA Law “On Mass Media”, did not reveal the source of the information.

As reported by the press service of the Central Committee, to the investigator’s question that the eyewitness to the incident, having read the publications, denied the circumstances presented in the publications, the media representatives did not express a position regarding the contradictory information and clarified that they only published the information reported by their sources, again refusing to identify the source.

“We announce that the witness who witnessed the death of Hayk Harutyunyan stated in his additional testimony that he did not give any information about the incident to the mass media. Moreover, he expressed indignation about the misinformation in the mass media,” the statement said.

Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan is on a working visit to the United States of America.

As Armenpress was told by the Information and Public Relations Department of the RA Prime Minister’s Office, at the end of the first day of their visit to New York, Nikol Pashinyan and Anna Hakobyan met with around 500 representatives of the local Armenian community in New York’s Saint Vardan Church.

At the entrance of the church, the Prime Minister of Armenia and his wife were welcomed by the leader of the Armenian Eastern Diocese of the USA, Bishop Daniel Fendikyan, Archbishop Vigen Aikazyan and Reverend Mesrop Parsamyan. Representatives of Armenians in New York welcomed Nikol Pashinyan and Anna Hakobyan with warm applause and great enthusiasm.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan welcomed hundreds of representatives of Armenians in New York and delivered a speech.

“Dear compatriots,

it is really a great honor and pleasure for me to meet you. Last year, when we visited the church, which was not planned because we thought it would be a problem of time, but it turned out that we visited, I had a great feeling of regret that we did not plan a meeting with the Armenians of New York. This year we thought we wouldn’t leave New York without meeting you. So I am very happy.

Not yesterday, on the first day, we had quite a good and impressive meeting in Los Angeles, and I gave a speech at that meeting, where I spoke about several important aspects of our national life. I don’t want to repeat what I said the other day in Los Angeles. In general, I would like to share the following impressions of the past 1 year and 5 months since the revolution.

The most important impression is the following. in general, the path of change is quite a difficult path, and when the revolution happened, the most important challenge that we are witnessing after the revolution is to make people understand that everything that is said and happened is really reality, because as strange as it may seem, not everyone and not always registers that it is really reality.

For example, I don’t understand how it is possible to be a public official in the Republic of Armenia after all these events and political changes and think that it is possible to take a bribe again, commit some illegality. That is the most surprising question for me, the answer to which I cannot find. You know that very often, every month, sometimes every week, some official is arrested with a bribe, and I cannot understand the logic of the work of those people’s minds. I always ask that question: don’t those people watch TV, don’t those people read the news, are those people from the Republic of Armenia or not?

This is perhaps the biggest challenge, because after the revolution, when the celebration is over and you go to your daily work, sometimes you come across views, suggestions: what happened, all this is good, but when are we going to divide our money, sectors, import quotas, and you realize that, in reality, this phenomenon is not widespread among a small group. This is perhaps the biggest challenge.

I want to repeat once again that everything that has happened and is happening is a reality, and those who will not record this, in their case, regardless of where they are, cannot be compromised. It seems to people that everything will remain the same, but instead of Serzh Sargsyan, another person will be sitting there. From the beginning, there was such an expression: Is this why we are making a revolution, that is, people who violate traffic rules, are fined, get upset, say, “We were making a revolution for this?”, a thief commits a theft, is caught, and says, “We were making a revolution for this,” a bribe taker takes a bribe, is caught, says, “We were making a revolution for this,” another cannot hire his friend. he says: was this why we were doing the revolution? That is, there was such a perception of the revolution that we could assume that those who worked for many years to get a fat position or to place their friends in a fat position and it didn’t work out, and they think that the revolution happened, what we wanted and couldn’t do, we will do now, we should have earned that money, we should be unpunished.

This is perhaps the biggest challenge that exists, but I also want to record that, as I said, I do not imagine compromising with such phenomena, because if I suddenly enter into a compromise with such phenomena, it will mean that these changes, the revolution that took place, are simply meaningless.

Therefore, our mission is not to reach some status and enjoy that status, but our task is to bring deep, substantial, institutional changes in the country, and to change the quality of our country, the quality of life in our country, the quality of the work of institutions in our country. This is a path where there will be no compromises. I consider that I have received a very strong mandate from the people of the Republic of Armenia, so that corruption, illegalities, patronage, and monopolies are eradicated from Armenia, and this should be done to the end and unreservedly.

I want to assure you that now I am even more determined than a year ago, because I understand that this determination is the only method by which we should solve all the problems facing our country, the result of which should be the following: Armenia should be a truly democratic, truly sovereign, truly social, truly legal state. This is our problem. Thank you for supporting us, supporting me in solving this problem. Now I will gladly answer all the questions that interest you. Thank you.”

After the speech of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, the representatives of the Armenian community in New York asked him questions. Nikol Pashinyan answered the fight against bribery, improving the quality of public administration in Armenia, priorities of the economy, overcoming unemployment, creating new jobs, encouraging people’s economic activity, reforms and vision of the education sector in Armenia, priorities for the development of the technology sector, strengthening the connection of Diaspora Armenian youth with the homeland and preserving the Armenian identity, introducing innovative medical technologies and a number of other questions.

Attached is the video of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s meeting with representatives of the Armenian community in New York.

An exhibition dedicated to the velvet revolution was also opened in the territory of St. Vardan Church in New York.

The plane chartered by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his delegation to the United States in order to participate in the 74th General Assembly of the United Nations (the cost of which was about 165 million drams) has become a topic for some websites. I am very happy that such a decision was made, now I will tell you why.

RA Prime Minister wrote about this on his Facebook page Nikol Pashinyan former adviser Arsen Kharatyan, to which the former president of RA opposed Serzh Sargsyan former press spokesman, former deputy of the National Assembly Samvel Farmanyan:

“Bort number 1” currently serving the head of Armenia was purchased in 2008 with credit funds. The Airbus 319 cannot fly over the ocean, so an aircraft with this capability is needed to reach the US in one piece.

Now the question will arise, what was Serzh Sargsyan doing, for example? I will answer. he solved the issue through several Armenian businessmen with private jets in the world, which obviously put the head of the state in debt, and the constraint from this free “love” should surely be compensated at the expense of the state and its interest.

For me, the security of the head of state is the number one priority, especially abroad, but it is no less important to give up so-called free favors. Therefore, as long as our state does not have “борт номер 1″ that has the ability to serve the first person of RA in any corner of the world, then yes, it is better to solve the problem by renting the necessary aircraft at the expense of our budget, because I am sure that the free affections will cost us and our state much more later…”, he said in his post.

Former NA deputy Samvel Farmanyan responded to him in the form of a comment under the same post, stating that Kharatyan’s information is wrong and that Serzh Sargsyan always traveled to the USA with state budget funds and non-charter flights.

“I’m just amazed to hear such a thought from you, yesterday’s high-ranking official. As a former spokesman for the president, I can confirm that during all transatlantic business trips, I repeat, all, the delegation, including the president, went to Paris on plane number 1, and from there on Air France or other airlines to New York, Washington, Los Angeles, etc.

And this can be verified in a matter of minutes. Do you know from whom and how (for example, from Zorik (Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, Foreign Minister) or from Varuzhan, who were part of those delegations dozens of times). I have no doubt that your post is the result of misinformation,” said Farmanyan’s post, who was Serzh Sargsyan’s press spokesman for a long time.

In the department of investigation of particularly important cases of the main military investigation department of the RA Investigative Committee, the relevant officials of the RA Ministry of Defense and the RA Armed Forces abused their official powers and exceeded their official powers, in 2018. 25/6 G.Hasratyan Street, Yerevan, apartment building in January “On housing provision for servicemen of the RA Ministry of Defense system” of the RA Government dated 03.07.2007. In the course of the preliminary investigation initiated in the criminal case initiated under Article 308, Part 1 and Article 309, Part 1 of the RA Criminal Code regarding the violation of the order established by Resolution No. 384, a sufficient combination of evidence was obtained to indict Vigen Sargsyan, the former Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia, as an accused in the case of transfer of official powers.

In particular, it was substantiated in the criminal case that the RA government’s 07.03.2007 by decision No. 384-N and the RA Minister of Defense dated 19.03.2013 According to Order No. 287, the authority to discuss the issue of providing free-of-charge housing to servicemen who need to improve housing conditions, with the exception of areas included in the list approved by the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia, except for the territories included in the list approved by the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia, was assigned to the Central Housing Commission of the Republic of Armenia, which was to be headed by the Government of the Republic of Armenia on 07.03.2007. According to decision No. 384-N, however, the RA Minister of Defense made a decision regarding the allocation of 29 out of 71 apartments in the building number 25/6 of G. Hasratyan Street in Yerevan, and the issue of the allocation of these apartments was not discussed by the committee at all, and as a result of the committee’s discussion, a number of apartments in the mentioned building, on the instructions of the RA Minister of Defense, were allocated by the commission in violation of the order established by the above-mentioned decision of the RA Government, as a result of which significant damage was caused to the RA Defense System. to the rights of servicemen in need of a residential area, to the latter’s and the legal interests of the state.

Bearing in mind that in accordance with Article 190, Part 6 of the RA Criminal Procedure Code, the investigators of the Special Investigation Service conduct the preliminary investigation of the cases of complicity or crimes committed by the head employees of the legislative, executive and judicial authorities of the Republic of Armenia, persons performing public service in connection with their official position, therefore, the criminal case was sent to the Special Investigation Service of the RA to continue the preliminary investigation.